Neglect of Manhattan Bridge Takes Toll in Time and Money

By GARRY PIERRE-PIERRE

Published: April 10, 1996

New York City's effort to shore up the crumbling Manhattan Bridge will take about 10 years longer and almost $300 million more than officials had predicted when the repairs began in 1982.

The repairs, which have cut two subway connections between Manhattan and Brooklyn for periods of more than 10 years each and have clogged roads and highways in both boroughs almost perpetually, are now expected to be finished around 2003 at a cost of $452 million.

Officials said that at each stage workers and engineers found new, unanticipated problems. Workers repeatedly peeled away corroding layers of metal only to find more corrosion.

Engineers first estimated that the repairs would be completed by 1995. While they have known for some time that the project could not be completed until after 2000, they have never publicly announced that the work would not be done on time. Engineers admit they underestimated the complexities of repairing a suspended structure like the Manhattan Bridge while maintaining some subway and car traffic.

"They were trying to give it their best shot and finish it as soon as possible," said Ira Deitch, director of structures in the New York office for the State Department of Transportation. "In the end, it was overly optimistic. It was more complex to finish the project than they thought."

If the work is completed by 2003, as now scheduled, it will mean that for nearly 20 years more than 200,000 riders a day will have been left without express service on the N and Q lines. The service was diverted from the bridge to the BMT Montague Street tunnel between lower Manhattan and downtown Brooklyn in 1986. That has prolonged travel time by 10 minutes. The seemingly endless repairs have frustrated commuters.

"In New York, you have to know how to deal with annoyances," said Thomas Jeanty, 27, of Fort Greene, Brooklyn, who rode his bicycle across the bridge as a teen-ager. "And this is definitely one of those things. What can you do?"

After the repairs are completed, the bridge should last for 80 years, officials predicted, with proper maintenance. But for a bridge that was allowed to fall into such disrepair in its first 80 years, proper maintenance may be a lot to expect. That lack of maintenance is a matter that few at the Department of Transportation want to talk about these days. Looking back, some Department of Transportation engineers said their repeated warnings to City Hall officials that the bridge was falling apart fell on deaf ears.

Some engineers said the city simply did not have the money to spend on its bridges, which, in any case, were never a political priority. After all, they said, much of the rust and decay was out of sight and the bridge was in no imminent danger of falling into the river.

One problem is that bridge maintenance has never ranked high on the list of priorities for the city's Department of Transportation, said Samuel I. Schwartz, the director of the Infrastructure Institute at Cooper Union and the former first deputy commissioner and chief engineer for the city's Department of Transportation in the 1980's.

Mr. Schwartz said the agency is more efficient at filling potholes and installing traffic lights, tasks usually done in response to local political pressure. He said he had wanted to create a separate agency that would focus on the bridges, like the Port Authority and the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority. Such an agency, he said, would aggressively pursue Federal and state money for bridge maintenance. He also suggested that tolls be restored on the East River bridges. Until 1911, people paid tolls to cross the Manhattan Bridge, Mr. Schwartz said.

"If people think they're not paying for it now," he said, "they are paying for it in the future. There is no such thing as a free bridge."

The Manhattan Bridge's problems underscored the neglect that has plagued many of the city's bridges. The Williamsburg Bridge was shut down several years ago because of problems with its cables and is undergoing a $650 million reconstruction.

When completed in 1909, the blue and gray Manhattan Bridge was considered a masterly suspension bridge, a companion to the Brooklyn and Williamsburg bridges spanning the East River. Considered the workhorse of the East River bridges, the Manhattan Bridge is the only one intended to handle trucks, cars and subway trains in both directions. For nearly a century, it absorbed the increasing weight of heavier cars and trucks and subway cars, as city officials failed to put a significant amount of money into maintenance.

But time finally caught up with it, and in the early 1980's city officials declared it "a very sick bridge." By 1982, the bridge could not safely withstand the constant pounding. Several years later, city officials decided to keep subway traffic on only one side of the bridge while they began the repairs.

Since then, the work has been hampered by poor planning and a lack of money for the appropriate technology to measure the scope of the damage. At almost every stage of the repairs, engineers discovered that the structural decay was considerably worse than they had thought. As they peeled away concrete and steel covers, they found layers underneath that had been eaten away and needed to be replaced. Inspectors discovered gaping holes, and dilapidated and worn-out steel beams.